Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition
Transportation Equity in Our City
48% of survey respondents said they prefer to live in communities with small houses and yards but within walking distance to the community’s amenities. Learn how walkable urban places are having a comeback moment.
“I grew up and into a love of architecture, streets, trees, buses, trains and lots of other things in the environment. Now I bring this to you in a format that is straightforward about who I am, a black urbanist, a young woman of African-American descent who likes all things built environment, especially when it comes to cities.”
“I’m a firm believer that transportation is one place where equity can and should be had. At the end of the day, a street is a street, we all have to use them and their presence should not be the signal of gentrification you worry about. It should be the one you champion to get you to where you need to go. Hence why I’m here advocating for what some call complete streets, others call road diets and yet others call road gentrification.”
The author/blogger bio:
Kristen E. Jeffers is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Black Urbanist, author of A Black Urbanist (second edition forthcoming), creator of the public speaking course Plan to Speak and 1/2 of the podcast Third Wave Urbanism, as well as a freelance writer, urban planner and advocate. She holds a Master of Public Affairs focused on community and economic development from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Bachelor of Arts in communication with a concentration in public relations from North Carolina State University.
Read more…
http://theblackurbanist.com/why-road-gentrification-is-good-gentrification/
Amy Levner, a vice president at KaBOOM!, the U.S. nonprofit that works to provide community-designed play spaces for children living in poverty, said the narrative of child-friendly cities has intensified in the past year, and a recent report on the subject from London-based design firm Arup has furthered the conversation. “The fact that the work came out of a major, multinational firm is exciting,” she said. “It’s not just coming from academics or policymakers, so it’s reaching a different, broader audience.”
Read more…
https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/02/how-to-design-cities-for-children/552086/
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NJBWC executive director, Cyndi Steiner: “Shooting for just a reduction in traffic deaths continues the current thinking that there is a certain number of traffic deaths that is an acceptable number,” she said. “To us, the only acceptable number is zero.”“
“Some pedestrian advocates said Vision Zero is a better alternative. Toward Zero Deaths has a goal to reduce deaths by 2.5 percent, which by 2030, is only a 30 percent drop in traffic fatalities, said Cyndi Steiner, New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition executive director.
“That is a far cry from NYC’s goal of zero deaths by 2024 and Philadelphia’s goal of zero deaths by 2030,” she said. “New Jersey needs a Vision Zero policy because the state continues to rank at the top or near the top in the nation in the percentage of road deaths that occur to pedestrians and bike riders.”
In 2016, New Jersey had the 15th highest pedestrian fatality rate in the nation, according to Governor’s Highway Safety Association analysis.
Increasing traffic deaths over the past three years indicate existing state programs haven’t been effective, Steiner said.”
Read more…
http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2018/02/safety_experts_nj_needs_nycs_vision_zero_in_nj_to.html
Superbowl car ads. They’re all pretty much the same, and it’s constant theme of car companies: Your car will make you feel younger, sexier, stronger, more in tune with the world around you…but the truth is driving your car will not make you feel anything much except stress while you navigate traffic (btw YOU are traffic), driving “defensively”, and trying to get to your destination as quickly as possible.
“…how many people can say their SUV made them a more empathetic person?”
Read more…
Looking for the Fulfillment That Car Ads Promise? You Won’t Get It From Driving.
Asbury Park is not unique in trying to solve the parking dilemma–residents and visitors complain continually about the lack of availablility. Understanding it in a new way will help. Rethinking parking:
“…vehicle parking is so ubiquitous that it is generally invisible, like water is to fish. Most people have no idea of the economic, social and environmental costs caused by the pursuit of convenient parking. So, to put these impacts into perspective here are some fun facts that you can use to communicate the cost, waste and inequity of current parking planning practices.”
Parking requirements are the dark matter of the urban universe: they affect transport and land use in mysterious ways. These fun facts illustrate the costs and impacts of economically excessive parking supply.
Despite problems with homelessness and housing inaffordability, no communities have laws that guarantee free housing for people, but nearly all jurisdictions have laws that mandate abundant, and usually free housing for vehicles, in the form of unpriced on-street parking and off-street parking requirements in zoning codes. These policies conflict: the more parking spaces we require for residential development, the fewer housing units that can be built in a given area, and the less affordable housing will be.
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Most wealthy nations have managed to reduce traffic deaths significantly in the past few decades, but the U.S. has not seen traffic deaths plunge at the same rate—and in recent years, they’re actually going back up. Overall, U.S.’s traffic deaths are much lower than they were in the 1970s, which experts often attribute to safety regulations like seatbelt laws.
But Jemilah Magnusson, global communications director for ITDP, has a different take on why deaths plummeted—those walkers simply became drivers. “The U.S. used to have a really high pedestrian death rate which we ‘solved’ by putting people in cars,” she says. “So now it’s even more hostile to pedestrians.”
Read more…
https://www.curbed.com/2018/1/31/16952856/walking-traffic-deaths-pedestrian-streets
“…8 principles for fostering Streets as Places, based on our years of experience in working with communities, the observations and research of well-known placemakers like Jane Jacobs and Allan B. Jacobs, and recent conversations with folks like Victor Dover, Ben Hamilton-Baillie, and Gil Peñalosa.”
“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.”
– Fred Kent, Project for Public Spaces
“Streets as Places is about Placemaking on one of the most important public spaces each community has – our streets. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value. With community-based participation at its center, an effective Streets as Places process capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, and results in streets that contribute to people’s health, happiness, and well being.”
